


The Kids Aren't Alright

by sorrens



Series: Love Thy Self as You Do Unto Others [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcoholism, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Kids (Good Omens), Gen, Godparents Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, No Betas We Fall Like Crowley, The Them - Freeform, Trauma, Violence can’t solve violence kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 11:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20257489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrens/pseuds/sorrens
Summary: When a member of The Them divulges that they're living in an abusive household, Aziraphale and Crowley are called upon to make things right.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for implied child abuse/alcoholism/domestic violence for both chapters (but mainly second one).
> 
> I'm on tumblr at @sorrens.

Aziraphale had “puttering” down to an art, and could spend an entire afternoon migrating to and from his desk rearranging the same five books. Every half an hour he took a tea break, which was strictly in the kitchen, it seemed that even the strongest miracle was no match for a strong Earl Grey split on a first reprint. The routine could accomodate Crowley, if the demon were so courteous to call ahead before he inhabited Aziraphale’s living room. This slightly adjusted routine usually called for frequent squabble breaks and something slightly more alcoholic than an Earl Grey, at the demon’s request.

He very rarely gave any notice, however, and Aziraphale prayed to some god he could rely on that it was Crowley who’d walked through the bookshop door when the chime sounded and not a customer. He shuffled from the backroom, teacup dangerously full, so intent on making sure it didn’t spill that he nearly walked in to—

“Crowley!” The demon looked perturbed. There wasn’t very much perturbing about the state of the world since the apocalypse _hadn’t_.

Aziraphale hurriedly put down his cup.

“What’s wrong, is it Hell? Have they tried to contact you?”

Crowley was holding his obnoxiously modern mobile, looking at a loss. He shook his head.

They moved over to the couches as the demon struggled to find a word. It was odd. For a man-shaped-being cool and calm and _excessively suave_ even in the face of imminent threat, the angel couldn’t hazard a guess at what had left him so dumbstruck.

“I, Angel— you know how I gave Adam my number, for emergencies and the like?”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened.

“Oh no, what’s happening.”

Crowley waved away the angel’s panic.

“No, it’s nothing… _biblical_.” He screwed his face up slightly.

“He just wants advice.”

“Oh well—“

“No, you don’t understand Angel. I’m not qualified for this!”

He tossed the phone over to Aziraphale, who dropped it and then fumbled and then failed to unlock it until Crowley sighed and moved over to help him out.

* * *

**ADAM:**

Hiya Crowley, I wasn’t sure who to ask but brian said I couldn’t tell anyone and you can keep a secret idk what to do. brian’s been sad lately and I got the feeling sum thing wasn’t quite right so I asked him and he said his parents are thinking of splitting up but his mum wants to move away to Scotland and leave him with his dad and that’s bad. I mean it’s great that he could stay in tadfield but brian’s dad is really scary. He’s worried about living with him, says he has a temper and does stuff. Please don’t tell that I told but I don’t know what to do and I need an adults advice.

* * *

“I’m not a fucking adult, Angel.” Crowley hissed. “I’m not a fucking CPS officer but I swear to Satan the only idea that comes to mind is a good smiting.”

His hands were shaking, Aziraphale grabbed them and held them tightly.

“Dear, you need to—.” Aziraphale looked back at the phone and there was a slight pang in his chest.

Crowley cared so much about kids.

What’s more, the angel knew he cared a lot about these kids _specifically_.

“No.” He said firmly, and took the phone out of the Demon’s hands. “I’m dealing with this one.”

Crowley looked confused.

“You can mind the shop whilst I’m gone.”

He didn’t argue, just bit his lip and began fumbling around for a drink.

“Don’t… don’t overdo it.” The angel said gently as Crowley summoned up a scotch.

The demon grunted.

Aziraphale resolved this would be the quickest intervention, lest Crowley drinks himself in to a stupor and does something stupid _(*Adopting a goat, he could deal with, and had before. Getting plastered and prank calling Hell, given their currently strained relationship, however, would be fatally stupid.) _

With this in mind, Aziraphale disconnected his landline and slipped Crowley’s mobile in his pocket.

“Stay here.”

He stepped out onto the pavement, eyes gravitating towards the Bentley and realising he didn’t have his usual means of transport.

How to get to Tadfield in under an hour? _Oh heavens, he was going to have to fly, wasn’t he?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for implied child abuse/alcoholism/domestic violence for both chapters (but mainly second one).
> 
> I'm on tumblr at @sorrens.

Adam was fretting. It went against his usual calm composure, but today was going to have to be the exception. He’d texted Crowley and received a hurried, disjointed reply that didn’t quite sound like Crowley (suspicious use of “dear”) that they’d sort it out. That was his second inkling that something was amiss — “they’d” — who had Crowley told? He imagined the demon taking one look at the message and calling Adam’s dad, or worse, Brian’s dad. He thought he could trust him most of all, but all signs pointed to the demon having blabbed already. It was times like these Adam allowed himself a well-chosen swear word.

“God Dammit,” (such an uttering was twice as devastating when spoken by the son of Satan.)

He was sitting in the back garden with Dog settled on his lap. The rest of The Them had broken for lunch, each hurrying back to their respective houses. Brain, perhaps, with a little more hesitation than the others. He wasn’t sure quite what he was waiting for. He hadn’t been inside for lunch yet. Maybe he was expecting Crowley to emerge from behind a tree or, maybe, in a flaming ball of rage — that’d be nice and flashy. He knew the demon well enough that he put a lot of stock in flashy.

His fretting kept dragging his mind back to the conversation this morning. They were playing pirates. Well, alien zombie pirates but they had swords and that’s what mattered to The Them. It was much easier to kidnap the enemy with a plastic knife than magical alien powers (the latter tended to result in a lot of arguing). Adam and Brian were perched in a tree. Brian slightly below Adam, fidgeting uncomfortably.

“Sit still, they’ll hear us.” Adam hissed.

“Sorry, I just.” The boy shifted his neck awkwardly, a spray of leaves dropped on his head.

“What’s that?” Adam whispered.

“What?” Brian grabbed at his head with his free arm, panicked. He wasn’t scared of much. Spiders, however, were decidedly an exception.

“No, that.” Adam poked the back of his neck, where a purple bruise blossomed.

“Ow!” Brian’s yell ran out through the empty wood. Somewhere in the distance, the boys heard Pepper shout.

“Sorry.” Adam muttered. “But what’s that from?”

Brian rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Hmph,”

It was unlike Brian to be lacking in words, and this gave Adam the sense that something was wrong. He clambered down a branch so that he was eye level with his friend. Brian was looking everywhere but at him, as if searching for a reasonable answer in the undergrowth.

He was shaking. Very slightly. Brian didn’t shake unless confronted with a rather large spider, Adam observed. Something was exceptionally wrong.

“Let’s get down.” Brian didn’t argue, and ungracefully dismounted the tree, and failed to get up off the forest floor.

That was when Brian confided that his parents were getting divorced. Adam had only met Brian’s mother once. She was lovely, if a little vague and withdrawn. He’d never met his father. He worked 12 hour night shifts and slept during the day. Well, Adam had assumed he slept during the day, but it seemed that he dabbled in drinking and yelling and slamming doors as well.

“Why does your mum let him do that?” Adam gestured at the handprint that ringed Brian’s neck. He couldn’t quite imagine having anything less than perfect parents. Well, maybe his parents weren’t perfect, but to the 11-year-old, they seemed pretty close.

Brian shook his head.

“She leaves the house when he gets angry.”

“Leaves you? Alone?” Adam’s voice rose in indignation.

“It’s not her fault.” Brian begged. “He’s just even more awful when she’s around. It’s… better.”

Adam felt his anger rising up.

“God Dammit!” He yelled. It echoed through the clearing and made the ground shake a little. Hopefully he hadn’t woken his biological father up. “That’s not better. That’s—“ he didn’t have any words for what _that_ was. There was a shout nearby and Pepper and Wensleydale burst in to the clearing.

“Haha, what amateurs.” Pepper cackled, assuming they’d fallen out of their tree.

Brian’s eyes were brimming with tears, but neither of the two arrivals noticed.

“I’ll find help.” Adam helped the boy to his feet, squeezing his arm gently. “I’ll ask my other friends.”

He wasn’t sure if Brian got the gist of what he was saying. He wasn’t even sure that the boy had heard what he’d said. But the appearance of the other two had somewhat revived him. He had plastered on a smile, bowing his head in resignation.

“Fine, fine. Well done, you’ve captured us.”

A rustle and a thump drowned out Adam’s fretting. A pine tree near the back of the garden was shaking slightly, like something rather large had just flown in to it.

“Crowley?” Adam pushed Dog off his lap and ran towards the noise.

“Oh dear, blast, bother.” The tree hissed before out emerged a crumpled angel.

“Aziraphale?” Adam frowned. He wasn’t disappointed, per say, to see him. In fact, he was glad that Crowley hadn’t shared with anyone else. Of course he’d have told Aziraphale. It was just… well…

“My coat, bother!” The angel dusted off the detritus from him outfit.

… He was fussy… as far less ruthless as Adam imagined Crowley could be. Ever since he’d seen the mark on Brian’s neck, he’d hankered for some justice in the form of holy fire. It seemed like something the demon used with reckless abandon.

“Dear boy, I heard about your friend’s problem.” Aziraphale knelt down and gave Dog a quick rub behind the ears. The angel sneezed. He must be allergic to evil.

“Where’s Crowley?” Adam didn’t mean to sound rude, but it came out that way. The man didn’t take offence.

“He’s a bit… upset.” He replied gently.

“So am I! I’m furious! We’re gonna take him down! He should have come to help us fight.” Adam raised his fists in what he hoped was a threatening manner. The angel gently pushed them down.

“No, dear. I don’t think violence beats violence in this case.”

The boy huffed.

“Crowley would fight.”

Aziraphale thought about the demon he’d left sprawled on his couch nursing a glass of scotch. He thought of the days after the Ark when Crowley had drunk, and cried, and raging, giving the angel the cold shoulder because he’d refused to intervene.

“Maybe, maybe not. It’s probably best if he’s not dealing with this.”

“How are we dealing with it?” Adam demanded.

“Firstly, there’s no “we”. This is an adult situation, it’s for adults. It’s dangerous.”

“Then why is Brian involved?”

“That, well, was an unfortunate failing of Her care. I assure you, I will get him out of it.”

The angel let himself out of the garden, Adam leading him down the road, towards Brian’s house.

“What’re you gonna do?” He persisted. “Yell at his dad? Yell at him until he doesn’t do it again?”

Aziraphale stopped and grabbed the boy’s arm.

“Look, Adam. This is complicated. You can’t just tell adults to stop doing things. You can’t just make everything go back to normal. Who knows, maybe this has always been Brian’s normal.” He sighed.

“Why wouldn’t he tell us?” Adam whispered, hurt seeping in to his voice.

“Like I said, as awful as it sounds, it was his normal. He probably didn’t know that fathers weren’t supposed to raise a hand to their children.”

Adam swallowed. He’d never seen his own dad hit anyone. Even when he played Saturday rugby, he’d tackle his opposition with the air of a gentleman, and apologise afterwards.

“He thought every dad hits their kids?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he was just scared of what would happen if someone found out.”

“What will happen?”

“Well, they might split up his family. Or he could get given to another family. It’d mean leaving Tadfield. It’d mean leaving his friends.”

Adam was crying now. The thought that Brian had held on through pain to remain close to The Them was a heartbreaking thought.

“Is that what you’re going to have to do?” He bit his lip. “You’ll have to split them up. Brian might move away?”

The angel smiled slightly and winked.

“I think you’ve found the right person. This is an extra special case and we’re going to call on some Divine Intervention.”

Adam’s eyes lit up.

Aziraphale knocked on the door of 50 Mulberry lane. Adam had agreed to hide in a nearby bush, as long as he could see the action. The angel assured him there wouldn’t be any “action” but the boy was still holding on to hopes that Aziraphale might resort to physical violence to make his point.

A surly bearded man answered the door. He towered at almost a foot taller than the angel. Aziraphale shrank back slightly.

“Whaddya want?” The man stunk of cigarettes. He looked Aziraphale up and down.

“Any reason you had to interrupt the game, ya poofter? Chelsea are playing. Your lot wouldn’t know that though, would youse?”

Aziraphale did say anything. What was there to say, really? Instead he waved his hand in front of the man's face so that his eyes slid, unfocused.

“You’re going to pack your things and go…” Aziraphale floundered “go to New Zealand and help look after the sheep. You will not remember your wife, your son. You will not raise a hand to hurt another person for the rest of yours days. You’re to leave your finances when you go. Get a job as a farmer when you get to New Zealand and start over.” He hesitated.

“Oh, and no drinking and no smoking.” He followed up sternly.

Adam watched from the bushes in amazement as the large man nodded slowly and closed the door.

“Is that it?” He burst out once they were alone. Aziraphale turned and smiled serenely.

“That’s it, dear boy. Now Adam and his mother are safe.”

“And they can stay here, in Tadfield?!” When the angel nodded, Adam punched the air and whooped.

“Wow, that was amazing!”

“Quite,”

They began to walk back towards Adam’s house. Aziraphale pulled the slim phone from his pocket and made to call the bookshop, before realising he’d self-sabotaged that one. He needed to get home to tell Crowley the good news before he spontaneously combusted.

“It’s a bit more complicated…” the angel began tentatively. “I think Brian and his mother might need some more support. Maybe someone to talk to. But that’s a future discussion. For now, I think it would be best if you were together as a group.”

Adam grinned, pulling a small black brick out of his pocket.

The walkie talkie crackled in to life.

“Come in, come in. The Them need to reconvene in the forest for round two of pirate zombie aliens. ASAP. Over.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was in a Neuro lecture writing most of this and I accidentally called Brian “Brain” as a result sometimes 🤦🏽♀️ At least my brain was trying to tune in


End file.
